“Your brother wants you,” I said from the heavenly bed in our suite beneath the sea. I looked out of the window on my side of the bed and saw a shark swim lazily behind a family of seahorses. I was still amazed that we were actually in the ocean in a hotel full of people who lived beneath the sea.

“What does he want?” Henry’s arm was thrown over his head, he was exhausted. He’d earned every moment of that exhaustion, I thought, as I waited for Malcolm to buzz around in my head again.

“It seems there’s something going on with your father.”

“What? What’s wrong now?” We couldn’t get a cellphone signal under the water, even if Henry had one, and I had to relay the images Mal sent me to Henry.

I saw Godwin heading into the forest behind our house, and knew Malcolm was following him. “He says your father has been acting strange since we left. He’s been watching him and saw him head off into the woods and is now following him.”

“What is that old man up to now?” I gave Henry a look. His father might be old, but he didn’t necessarily look old. He was still fit and healthy looking. Dragons didn’t age as humans did, after all. Especially in their own world.

“Mal says there are wolves there, he can smell them.” Sure enough, as Mal stepped further into the woods, a group of five wolves appeared, in their human forms.

“That’s Zlo, a Russian wolf from your world. What’s he doing at our house?”

We watched through Mal’s eyes as Godwin, normally a very regal man, approached the wolves with something akin to deference. Zlo handed Godwin something, and Godwin fell to his knees with his hand above his mouth.

“Is he pouring something into his mouth?” I knew in that moment that our honeymoon was over before it had even begun.

Cade Alexander is here with me. I’m sorry Willow, but if what he says is true, I need Henry here. You two have to come back.

I sighed with disappointment but knew there was little that could be done.

Did Cade really say it was vampire blood? I asked.

Yes, it seems to be a problem from the wolves of your world. Just get home and we’ll talk about it in person. Sorry, Willow.

I sighed again and looked over at Henry.

“Time to head back to the real world.” He’d seen it all from me and let out his own sigh. “Why the fuck would my father drink vampire blood? That’s just stupid.”

“Mal said he’d explain when we get home.” I got out of the bed, opened the case we’d brought, and put on a pair of jeans and a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with a hood. It could get cold on Henry’s back.

It didn’t take long to get back to the house, and it was a good thing we went back. Chaos seemed to reign as people walked in and out of rooms, and plans were being made. Our home now looked like a war room with maps tacked on the wall with putty, and the Alexander clan and Henry’s clan directing soldiers to different areas of the house.

“What the hell?” I asked as I looked around. “What have you done to my house?”

Henry placed a soothing hand on the small of my back and walked me into the kitchen. We found Cane there with Malcolm at the pine table we’d bought to feed an entire army. It was covered in papers, pictures, and more maps now.

“Hi, Willow, Henry! Sorry to take over your home, but we seem to have a major problem that we were unaware of. We thought it best to stay in your world since this seems to be the point of origin.” Mal stood up and ushered us to our own table.

I glared at him, but he just gave me a smile that melted my chagrin away. They all seemed to be able to do that to me now. I huffed anyway and sat down.

“What’s going on then?” Henry asked as he took his own seat beside me.

“It seems the wolves in this world had other plans to cause disruption. The Alexanders here wiped most of them out with the help of their own clans spread around their world. They were selling vampire blood to shifters, apparently it’s an intoxicant that’s a hundred times more addictive than cocaine is to humans.”

“Yes, my brother, Jadrian, had a problem with it for a while.” I turned to Cade when he took over speaking. “It causes a euphoric feeling and can make even humans feel like they can keep up with the physiology of shifters. Jadrian was using it to try to fulfill the duties we didn’t realize were too much for a mortal person to handle. His wife, Allana, made him a shifter, and that took care of the problem, but it can be very addictive to shifters of any kind. If they’ve infiltrated your world, then we need to stop it, now.”

Sabrina came in and took a place at the table. She was a vampire, I realized as I watched her. A very beautiful one. “My people aren’t all moral people. Some are quite evil, as your mythology says. They’d sell their own creator if it bought them what they wanted. The remaining wolves have used them to sell their blood to other humans and shifters in our world. If the king of the dragon world is using it, we have a problem.”

Something about her drew me, but I don’t think she did it on purpose. She was just... seductive. I looked away, rather confused about the whole thing. Henry had told me vampires were real before I met the clan, but she was just something I hadn’t expected. She smiled at me, a smile that was an apology at the same time as it was reassurance that she understood.

“So what do we do?” Henry asked finally, his gaze on his brothers. Apparently, he didn’t feel the slightest bit of allure from the beautiful vampire.

“We prepare for battle. This is an opening shot, and they’ve already scored a victory, I’m afraid,” Cane said, and Malcolm nodded in agreement.

“Wait, we only just got married. Can’t we put this whole battle mode thing off for even a few days?”

“It can’t wait, Willow. We have to start to dig out the cells and put a stop to this before it goes any further.”

I looked at Henry and knew he was right. Damn it all!